Field of the Invention
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a liquid crystal display.
Discussion of the Background
A liquid crystal display (LCD) is one of the most widely used flat panel displays, and includes a pair of panels including a plurality of field generating electrodes such as pixel electrodes and a common electrode and a liquid crystal layer filled in a gap between the two panels.
An electric field is generated by applying electric voltages to the field generating electrodes, and the electric field changes orientations of liquid crystal molecules in the liquid crystal layer, thereby controlling polarization of incident light to display images.
Among the LCDs, a vertically aligned (VA) mode where long axes of the liquid crystal molecules are perpendicular to surfaces of the panels in the absence of electric field is promising since the vertically aligned mode provides high contrast ratio and wide viewing angle.
A pixel of a VA mode LCD may include a plurality of domains, wherein average orientations of the liquid crystal molecules in different domains being different from each other in order to obtain a wide viewing angle. In order to form multiple domains, a plurality of cutouts may be provided in the field generating electrodes. However, such a structure may cause the decrease of the opening ratio, and the liquid crystal molecules far from the cutouts may have a large response time.
Another method of forming multiple domains in a pixel is to illuminate light to an alignment layer to control orientations of the liquid crystal molecules. The light-induced alignment may require no cutout in the field generating electrodes, thereby increasing the opening ratio, and may provide pretilt, thereby improving the response time. However, the light-induced alignment may not significantly improve the decrease of the light transmittance due to fringe fields caused by edges of the field generating electrodes.